Photo Journal: Out of the blue

The world's first blue chrysanthemums created through genetic modification are seen in the Ibaraki Prefecture city of Tsukuba. The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) plans to improve the plant so it does not cross with wild chrysanthemums and can be cultivated by general producers, aiming to commercialize the blue flower within 10 years. Chrysanthemums do not have a natural blue coloring gene and it had previously been impossible to create blue or purple flowers through breeding techniques. After 16 years of trial and error in mixing color-designing genes from other flowers, NARO finally succeeded in creating the blue flower. (Mainichi)